


Ronan's skills are ON POINT

by pantalaimon



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Adam needs to pay more attention, Ballet, Gen, trans!boy Ronan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-10
Updated: 2015-07-10
Packaged: 2018-04-08 16:47:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4312701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pantalaimon/pseuds/pantalaimon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Meanwhile, Adam's observation skills are not. Basically Ronan is a trans boy that does ballet, not the typical pastime of a "tough guy" but he goes to Irish music competitions so I mean....</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ronan's skills are ON POINT

**Author's Note:**

> "Penelope" - dream weaver

"Okay Penny, try to have fun, I'll see you later."  
"Bye dad." Penelope hugged her father before turning and glaring into the large open room. This was completely her father's idea, with maybe a little input from her mother. Penelope thought it was stupid. Only girly-girls did ballet, but according to Niall Lynch, ballet would help his daughter's balance so she could fight better. Penelope had wanted to box ever since her dad had shown her how to punch. There was a lot of unexplained anger in that small child, and hitting someone without consequence seemed like a better way to relieve it than twirling about on your tiptoes.  
There were other girls in the room, and a few boys too. This paused Penelope for a moment. Boys could do ballet too? She had no idea how any of this worked, so maybe it wasn't just girly-girls who danced.  
A middle aged woman wrapped in an excessive amount of shawls swept up in front of Penelope with a clipboard.  
"Penelope Lynch, I presume?"  
Penelope could only stare for a moment. Who said presume anymore?  
"Oh, uh, yeah, that's me."  
The lady pursed her lips and stared down through her glasses. "I am Mz Rothel, and you will address me as such when you are in this class."  
Penelope shrugged.  
"Okay then."  
Mz Rothel raised her eyebrows and pursed her lips even more, if that was possible.  
"...Mz Rothel."  
The teacher nodded and abruptly spun away, rounding up the rest of the class. Penelope rolled her eyes and followed, not happy about what was to come.

"Penelope. Penelope!"  
Ronan blinked. Mz Rothel was staring at him. Apparently he had done something wrong in the 2.5 seconds he was spacing off.  
"Your back isn't straight. Did the hunchback of Notre Dame do ballet? No!"  
Ronan straightened his back and glared at his teacher, still covered in shawls and peering down through her glasses (although now they were bifocals).  
"Mz Rothel, I've told you a hundred times, my name is Ronan."  
Mz Rothel nodded curtly. "It is when you do something right."  
Ronan gritted his teeth and focused intensely on the rest of rehearsal. No spacing off allowed. But there was so much to think about. His dreams last night were particularly painful, filled with terrifying creatures chasing him through a mysterious forest filled with the largest trees imaginable. They whispered to him, something he knew he could grasp, if only it was the slightest bit louder. Ronan knew the trees were telling him how to escape, but since he couldn't hear them, he stumbled blindly through the forest, getting deeper and deeper as he went, running in circles until the light slowly faded and his lungs collapsed and the creatures closed in-  
Ronan realized that Mz Rothel was traveling down the line of dancers, inspecting their form, and he snapped into razor focus. His eyes stared straight ahead, and Mz Rothel made an approving noise.  
"Everyone look here. Ronan's form is what you should be striving for. Look how his arms are just so. This is the angle you need, not the noodle arm maneuver that I'm seeing right now. It doesn't matter if you're tired, just do it right. Okay, it's six o'clock, you can all leave. Practice with just your arms tonight."  
Ronan relaxed his body, walking over to the barre to stretch. He was still getting back into the swing of things after not being able to dance for a while following his chest surgery. It still hurt sometimes, and he would often rub it absently, the same way his friend Gansey would rub his bottom lip.  
Mz Rothel walked over to where Ronan was standing and gave him a quick once over.  
"I suppose you'll have to be fitted for new outfits, won't you?"  
For once in his life, Ronan smiled at his ballet teacher.

Adam couldn't stop watching Ronan. He was becoming a but worried about it, actually. Something about the way he moved just drew Adam's eye. He had expected Ronan to be sloppy and clumsy when he first met the boy, based off if his "I don't care" attitude in class, but the opposite seemed to be true. Adam had never seen Ronan trip or stumble or make any movement that wasn't graceful and fluid. And some of it was more than that. If Ronan's door was ever slightly cracked, Adam would sometimes walk by and get a glimpse of Ronan casually doing the splits on the floor, or pointing his toes delicately. Even Ronan's hands were eye-catching, making smooth gestures with long precise fingers and thin bony wrists.  
Adam thought that some of these things were just his brain making a big deal out of small quirks, or maybe they were leftover feminine actions from his childhood? Ronan had just come out to everyone recently, and Adam still didn't know how everything worked, but he was getting there. Ronan had finally let him see his scars on his chest, and Adam had felt a strange mixture of happiness and sadness for his friend. It had been one of the only times he had seen Ronan hesitate, or have anything but confidence in his actions. It was strange, and Adam didn't know if he liked or disliked the feeling that Ronan's open expression gave him. It felt too trusting after knowing Ronan as someone who mostly kept to himself and snapped at anyone who inquired too closely about his personal life. Sometimes he truly seemed to be the snake that Calla saw him as.

"Where are we going? Monmouth's the other way."  
Ronan stared ahead, trying to focus through the curtain of rain that was pouring onto the BMW.  
"I've gotta stop somewhere. You can wait in the car if you want, it won't take long."  
"What do you need?" The thought of Ronan running errands was just plain strange to Adam.  
Ronan chanced a sideways look at Adam.  
"Shoes."  
Adam looked down at Ronan's feet.  
"Those are like brand new!" A simmer of anger flared up inside Adam. Of course Ronan could get new shoes just weeks after buying a pair, he was an Aglionby boy. A real one, and not the pretender Adam felt he was.  
Ronan sighed. "Different shoes."  
Adam pushed down the anger and just shrugged. If he wanted to buy a pair of shoes every day then whoop-de-doo, it wasn't Adam's concern.  
Ronan pulled into a parking lot of a building that looked vaguely familiar to Adam. Since Henrietta was a small town, Adam had no doubt he'd seen the store before, maybe even bought something from it. Ronan unbuckled and swung the car door open, barely even noticing the rain.  
"You staying here?"  
Adam unbuckled as well.  
"I guess I'll come in. Not much to do in here."  
Ronan shrugged and started walking towards the store. Adam put his hood up and followed. He was so busy blinking the rain out of his eyes that he didn't even bother to look up at the name of the store, but when he walked in the front door, he was bombarded by an array of pink and beige. His jaw actually dropped as he saw Ronan purposefully walking towards the back of a- ballet store?  
Adam followed Ronan to the back, gaping at everything he saw. Ronan was trying on some pointe shoes while a athletic teenage girl looked on from behind the counter.  
"You do ballet?!" Adam was surprised he even got the words out, he was so shocked.  
Ronan looked up from his ribbon tying. "Yeah. You didn't know that?"  
"You weren't going to tell us?"  
"You never asked, so I assumed you just didn't care about it. Where did you think I went after school?"  
Adam shrugged. "Racing?"  
Ronan laughed. "At four in the afternoon? With who, the bus drivers?"  
"I don't know!" Adam said indignantly. "I just figured it was generally illegal tough guy stuff, not ballet!"  
Ronan frowned, not looking up from tying his second shoe. "My dad started me for the balance, to help with my boxing, and I liked it so I kept going." He stood up, feet out in what was undoubtedly some sort of first or fifth or twenty ninth position that Adam didn't know about. Then he went up on his toes, something that would probably snap Adam's feet in half if he ever tried it. He tried a few moves, and Adam could tell Ronan was a little self conscious about his movements in front of a new audience. Finally he took them off and paid the girl behind the counter, talking to her like he'd known her for years, which maybe he had. Adam felt like he had to call into question everything he knew about Ronan. If he could be a ballerina without Adam noticing, then maybe Adam needed to pay more attention.


End file.
